#AtoZChallenge: A is for A new name for this blog 📛

New name, same cool Stormtroopers.

A drunken woman led to the renaming of this blog.

Let me explain. I’d been feeling as if the Coach Daddy name didn’t fit anymore. Like, I’d cycled out of it.

I’m still a coach.

I’m still a daddy.

I’m just not … Coach Daddy.

I drove to the restaurant where Camdyn works to pick her up after her shift one night. I pulled my flashy gray Hyundai into a parking space and texted her, as I do when picking up any of my girls: I’m here little one.

(They love when I do this.)

And I waited. There were tables to wipe down, or she forgot the Coke Zero (no ice) she always gives me for picking her up. And three boisterous women approached my car.

Well, one did – the other stayed back.

Are you our Uber? she asked in that too-loud voice that often accompanies a night of Bud Light tallboys. I laughed. Nah, I’m just a dad, I said.

Are you our Uber? she asked in that too-loud voice that often accompanies a night of. Bud Light tallboys. I laughed. Nah, I’m just a dad, I said.

I explained that I was there to pick up my daughter, who works there. You can all the way out here late at night to give your daughter a ride? She asked, swaying only a little now, because this was serious.

THAT IS SOOO SWEET!

You know when things are extra – funny, sad, anger-inducing, delicious, whatever – when we drink? Well, to her, this simple act of picking up a kid after a dinner shift felt like Dad O The Year material.

She smiled at me sweetly in that loving way that many of us do after the second margarita.

YOUR DAD IS SOOO SWEET! The lady told Camdyn as she walked to my car. Dad, those girls were SO drunk, Camdyn muttered after waving and smiling.

She’s right, you know, I told my kid. We drove off and they waved.

She has no idea she had just renamed my blog.

I am just a dad now, and that’s fine. I didn’t want to stop being my kids’ coach, but some things are out of our control. I coach a group of boys and girls who feel like my kids. But my teams always do.

As Just a Dad, I do cool shit. I drive my oldest to California … in three days … in a beat-up Subaru … with a cat in the backseat.

As Just a Dad, I’ll go to my middle daughter’s match in the middle of the week and get easily talked into Mexican food afterward. (Enchiladas = ❤️)

And I can pick up my daughter at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night. What else would I be doing? And if a tipsy chick wants to think that’s pretty all right, well … I’m good with that, too.

-30-

🌶️ Go Ask Daddy About Spicy Commercials, Reserved Parking and the Home of the Demon Deacs

I think I remember you from my teenage years …

Long before Kesha and Jennifer Lawrence, way back on the timeline before Ingrid Michaelson and Laura Linney, in a time Hope Solo, Sue Bird and Paula Creamer were just youth-league cuties … there was the MCI girl.

Guys, this is Jean Louisa Kelly.

Her cute but creepy ad for the soon-defunct MCI became all sortsa Dream Weaver for me.  She resurfaced in Mr. Holland’s Opus, as star-dreaming Rowena Morgan in 1995. In 2000, you could see her in Yes, Dear, married to a dude even dweebier than yours truly.

I thought she’d disappeared after that feeble TV show.

Then I watched 1,000 to 1: The Cory Weissman Story. I resisted, invoking my “No Movies That Star Kids From Disney Shows” clause. But … Cory’s mom looked, so sweetly familiar. The curls were now straight; her lipstick less pow than fire-engine red.

15 Amazing (and Simple) Things For a Happy Life

Happiness glows from within one. Or from directly behind one.

Oy, happiness.

It’s there. We must practice patience. It’s like a Taco Bell burrito. Sometimes, they’re made incorrectly. All the cheese or sauce or sauce and cheese get tucked into the final fifth of the burrito. One must endure dry beans for a while, but eventually you’ll get the cheese.

Or the sauce or sauce and cheese.

Laura writes the blog Riddle from the Middle. It’s real life, as she says, with a side of snark. She’s a lover of family, words, and music, and really, with proper snacks, isn’t that what we all love? She writes a thoughtful, enlightening blog I hope you’ll check out.

Where Are You Going? 10 Questions for Direction

“Candy, as far as the eye could see. Almond Joy, Krackle, Skittles. Not the cheap-ass candy from the dollar store.”

To remain in this moment becomes perhaps the closest we can come to ultimate harmony. It’s tricky.

It requires dismissing the past, shunning self-imposed limitations and savoring every ounce of life. Living in the moment also gets a bad rap. That’s what happens when folks jet to Vegas or say yes when they should say no, invoking a Carpe Diem Clause.

The Carpe Diem Clause, however, doesn’t cover gambling losses, lost teeth, lost wages, marriage annulments or penicillin shots.

Brianna Wiest wrote a book called The Truth About Everything. She also wrote a post for Elephant Journal that I wrapped in cheesecloth and hid behind my disc golf bag. It’s 10 questions to ask yourself when you don’t know where your life should go next.

Go Ask Daddy About Cinematic Symbolism, Steve Martin Stunts and Retail/Dining options for Dec. 31

Do you know where that water’s been, brother?

NPR just made rain kind of gross.

A show promo pointed out that water we drink today has passed through the kidneys of a brontosaurus. Japanese freestyle swimmer Shigeo Arai probably swam through it in the 1936 Olympics.

It might have lived in a water pitcher on the set of the Dominican telenovela Tropico, too. I try not to think of that, but it’s true. Water’s the original repurposed thing.

Sure, rain’s kind of nasty, but it’s also beautifully poetic. It made up puddles my girls stomped in walking into the grocery store with dad. It helped soil uniforms – school and soccer – and locked in stories and memories and history.

Guest Post: Mo, of Mocadeaux, on Plethora

The search for the right word can sometimes be like this.

This one time, Grace thought she’d become famous.

All it took was a parade. We’d talked in church about joining the Pride Parade a few years ago. Grace heard keywords – parade … ride a float … matching T-shirts! She was stoked. So I explained what the Pride Parade meant.

She remained stoked.

We didn’t end up walking. She went off with the grandparents that day. The conversation happened, though. When I wrote about it, today’s guest poster, Mo of Mocadeaux, chimed in on the CD for the first time.

What One Soccer Coach Included On His Wish List Might Shock You

It’s kind of like a soccer sideline, but really, it’s the towel rack at the Acorn Motel in Black Mountain, N.C. Nice place.

I’ll get it out of the way, first.

As a soccer coach, I’d love it if the tradition of root beer and a Cubano sandwich became post-game routine. I know that won’t happen, unless I make it work for myself. (Coaches who maintain a set approval rating could upgrade to cold beer and a Monte Cristo.)

Here’s 42 reasonable (and some unreasonable) items on this coach’s wish list.

🎧 Go Ask Daddy About Joint Noise, TV Tech and What Happens When You Set a Stopwatch with The Good Book

I call this one, Distortion. Camdyn’s Coca-cola glass, though, also makes me thirsty.

I won’t divulge individual names right now.

Consider all three girls implicated, though. The injuries they’ve suffered number in triple digits. The injuries they’ve suffered have only a few been serious. The injuries they’ve suffered occurred at the hands of – their other sisters. Well, mostly.

Some are self-inflicted.

One kid suffered a hyper-extended elbow climbing into a cardboard box. One bruised a cheekbone opening a car door. One burned her hand when she touched a stove burner I just turned off. (These are all one kid. And she blames me for the last one.)

42 People Who Need a Stern Talkin-To (Who Aren’t named Hope Solo)

He gets just enough of the save to keep the match level!

I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.

Well, okay. I’m not happy. I noticed Hopey Solo – I mean, Hope – trending on Twitter the other night. That can’t be good, I thought. And it wasn’t. Turns out, Boo got suspended for six months for mouthing off after a shootout loss to Sweden in the World Cup.

The USWNT also terminated her contract. She called the Swedes “cowards” for their conservative tactics in a tied match against the U.S. I disagree with her. In my eyes, Sweden played legal tactics that give them the best chance at winning.

Hope’s diatribe was only words. No mammals were traumatized. Amphibians either. It might have lacked class, but Hope responded honestly to a question.

Go Ask Daddy about baby multiples, mustache machinations and the trappings of a finicky existence

You gotta be joking …

This week has given me new news to hate and reminders of old news that I still hate.

So extensive is my disdain for the decision to suspend USWNT goalkeeper Hope Solo for six months – and terminate her contract – that I rattled off a topper to this week’s Go Ask Daddy in defense.

I started to bang out a list of people who deserve harsh words more than Hopey.

I got to 35, and saw the word count bulge to 600+ – and I hadn’t even gotten to my kids’ questions! I contained all the vitriol, and will continue the thought for Monday’s post. You’ve been warned.